Posted
by
samzenpus
on Tuesday October 05, 2010 @01:19PM
from the vincent-van-gort dept.

ptresset writes "From Singularity Hub: 'Artists and programmers in the UK have decided to improve upon the male and female symbols outside many toilet facilities. They’ve developed a set of robotic arms that take pictures of people entering into a bathroom and then use that image to create a unique drawing to place outside the door. It then wipes away this art to make room for the next person’s caricature.'"

Of course, the images it drew didn't even appear to be caricatures, only a random-looking image of the vague outline of a person, with circles for representing the boobs for women (and, if I ever met a women with boobs up on her shoulders, I'd probably run for my life) and a crudely drawn schlong and meatballs for men. It's like they had a 3-year-old spend 5 minutes looking at a copy of Playboy and Playgirl and having the child draw what they thought they saw.

TFA is four paragraphs long. 4. Less then five, more then three. It's not a long read, it would take you less then a minute to find "Tresset and Khaorapapong have approached the art in a new way, as Ladies&Gents must focus on limbs and silhouettes rather than faces."

I skimmed it, and while I didn't find that part, I still fail to see the marvel of a stick figure drawing robot. It drew a penis, and there was no visible penis. I assume it makes parts up as it goes. So... people are to look at the picture, and instead of a face, look for the penis or breasts (or even more simply, the pink picture or the blue picture). Since there was a guy on the right and a woman on the left it appears as if it doesn't recognize male or female either, it just knows to draw a woman on

A caricature is easily identifiable as a deliberate distortion of its subject's features. These images are vague sketches of image-captured outlines, with some randomness thrown in.

Even rudimentary drawing robots like these are examples of artificial creativity.

Setting aside how ridiculous "artificial creativity" is, there is nothing to back up the article's assertion of creativity. The idea is novel, but the output is algorithmic with a bit of randomness thrown in.

"The idea is novel, but the output is algorithmic with a bit of randomness thrown in."

Agreed, these are as creative as filling in blank spots in your data with the result of dice rolls. As a robotics project its fine, but it'd be the least efficient use of my loo time. I'd rather go use the wc, come back, and then watch the apparatus draw things.

In the video, the robot drew boobs on the girl and a penis on the guy! Given the nature of the drawing, I suspect that the robot is really just remotely-controlled arms with an artist looking through the video camera.

In the video, the robot drew boobs on the girl and a penis on the guy! Given the nature of the drawing, I suspect that the robot is really just remotely-controlled arms with an artist looking through the video camera.

Or...maybe the one on the womens side always draws boobs and the one on the mens side always draws penis's. Just a thought.

I'm not sure if this is a hoax, or just a typically poor piece of journalism that misrepresents the intentions of the engineers. Either way the term "caricature" is wildly misused. It's not even representing the people standing in front of it in the correct pose, it's just geometric stick figures...with boobs/penis.